Qvest expands SWR’s colour spectrum
March 14, 2022
Qvest was commissioned by Südwestrundfunk (SWR) as general contractor for a roots-and-branch renewal and expansion of its professional colourgrading environment. The core technological component underpinning the Qvest setup was the renowned high-end baselight system from colour grading specialists Filmlight. In terms of seamless integration and individual adaptation of premises, as well as the selection of hardware and software, the implementation marks new standards in the area of colour correction – and not only in Germany.The goal of SWR was to revamp and refocus the technical colour correction infrastructure. Their approach involved installing high-end hardware and software components, which allowed SWR’s colourists to perform all colour correction tasks conveniently, intuitively, and reliably. A team of Qvest experts set up five colour correction workstations for SWR at their Baden-Baden site: Two grading suites and two assistant workstations, plus a workstation for an administrator.The new IT architecture for the colourgrading studio was established with a 100 Gbit/s network and 720 TB (terabytes) of central storage at its core. With 10 and 6 GB/s read and write speeds setting the pace, there is more than enough memory capacity on offer, however stringent the network infrastructure requirements become. Both grading suites come complete with a “Baselight 2” system and a “Blackboard 2” panel, while the suites use Sony Class 1 displays in the BVM-X300 V2 and HX-310 model range for colour-critical image assessment. The workstations fit seamlessly into the infrastructure with a 50 Gbit/s network and can handle the data transfer of uncompressed video signals in Ultra High Definition (UHD) at 50p effortlessly.“When renewing our colour correction, our top priority was implementing best-in-class infrastructure that included innovative technologies and workflows. Collaborating on the project work with experts from Qvest and Filmlight helped us achieve this goal. Our colourists can now implement colour grading at a whole new level, and we can offer our viewers a particularly impressive colour experience on screen. Our team now has the perfect technical setup to handle all current and future productions,” says Marc Weckenmann, responsible SWR project manager.“We were able to work as a team with the colour grading specialists from SWR and Filmlight in an ideally coordinated setup. Despite the challenge of Covid-19, our preparation was smooth and mostly remote. As a result, the installation of the highly specialized workstations on site went absolutely as planned,” says Daniel Erpilev, Solutions Architect at Qvest.In addition to the two-colour grading suites, the assistants´ workstations also offer remarkably high performance. With Filmlight’s “Daylight Tool”, the SWR specialists can now perform entire workflows particularly intuitively and efficiently; from ingest to dailies. The Guntermann & Drunck KVM system ensures all resources are optimally exploited and provides tech support as required, since all workstations are controllable and operable from those in the colour grading studio. All workstations also allow colour correction with DPX sequences at 2160p/50 resolution. Units in the colour correction studio, meanwhile, boast individually adapted furniture and consoles with ergonomic and technical configuration for image evaluation with peerless precision. All the tables and panels are gradually height adjustable. The sideboards have also been configured to accommodate ingest peripheral equipment.